TWW'S CRAZY NEWS STORIES

Chat about anything and everything... (well almost anything) Whether it be the front porch or the pot belly stove or news of interest or a topic of your liking, this is the place to post it.

Moderator: S2k Moderators

Message
Author
User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#581 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:14 am

London's Marble Arch May Be on the March - Again

LONDON (Reuters) - Marble Arch, a 45-foot-high monument built to commemorate Britain's victory over Napoleon, could be on the move again after spending years as little more than a glorified traffic island.

Originally built in front of Buckingham Palace, it was moved in 1851 to the site of the long-demolished Tyburn gallows at the end of London's busy Oxford Street.

Now it might rescued from the traffic and moved about 100 yards to form a grand entrance to Hyde Park, the one-time royal hunting ground which now covers 350 acres in the center of the capital.

"We are looking at a better position for the arch," said a spokesman for Transport for London, the capital's body responsible for the partial pedestrianization of Trafalgar Square in 2003.

English Heritage, the government agency that owns Marble Arch, said it was also keen to showcase the arch, which was built of white Carrara marble in 1827 along the lines of the triumphal arch of the Roman Emperor Constantine.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#582 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:14 am

Rice with Everything in China - Including Relics

BEIJING (Reuters) - Rice fills the bowls on many Chinese tables -- and also the cracks in its ancient buildings, and maybe even the Great Wall, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The legend that ancient Chinese craftsmen used glutinous rice porridge in the mortar while building ramparts has been verified," it said in a report seen on Monday.

Archaeologists researching an ancient wall around the city of Xi'an, a former imperial capital and home to the famed terracotta warriors, were stumped by the ingredients of a resilient mortar holding bricks together.

The hardened paste reacted similarly to glutinous, or sticky, rice in chemical tests, Qin Jianming, a researcher with the Xi'an Preservation and Restoration Center of Cultural Relics, was quoted as saying.

"Thus we can conclude that the sticky material was in the mortar," Qin said.

The 12-meter (40-ft) wall was built during the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and remains well preserved today.

Rice, a staple for most of the country, may also have been used to keep one of the world's most famous structures together, Xinhua said.

"It is said that ancient construction workers used glutinous rice porridge when building the Great Wall more than 2,000 years ago."
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#583 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:16 am

Teacher Has Sex with Pupil While Baby in Car: Cops

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - A California high school teacher was arraigned on Monday at a Sacramento court accused of having sex with a student in a car as her two-year child was strapped into the back seat.

Margaret De Barraicua, 30, a teacher trainee, was charged with four counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, a 16-year-old student. The married woman was caught having sex in the late afternoon last week in what was apparently a consensual agreement, officials said.

"We received a call about a suspicious parked vehicle at a school here in Sacramento," said local police spokesman Justin Risley. "They got there and observed two people, windows-steamed-up type of thing."

"They found them to be partially clothed and engaging in what appeared to be sexual intercourse."

Her two-year old son was strapped by a seat belt in the back of the car during the time, he said.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#584 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:16 am

Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Now: a stuff Star

LONDON (Reuters) - In its 183-year history, the august Oxford Union debating society has heard the wisdom of Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan and Mother Teresa.

Now its members are to hear from Ron Jeremy, star of 1,700 adult films, including "Bang Along With Ron."

"Ron is the biggest and apparently the best in the business, so I'm sure he'll have some fascinating stories to tell," said Oxford Union librarian Vladimir Bermant, who organized the event.

Jeremy, who claims to have slept with more than 4,000 women, will address the union on Wednesday, joining many British prime ministers, three U.S. presidents and prominent figures from the Dalai Lama to Malcolm X in its archival guest list.

Peter Cardwell, spokesman for one of the English-speaking world's most respected debating societies, said U.S. stuff star Jenna Jameson also addressed the union a few years ago.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#585 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:21 am

Nordic Nations Call for New Limits on Sun Beds

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The five Nordic nations called on the European Union Monday to impose a tighter limit on the strength of sun beds, and warned sun-starved citizens they were at more risk than others of contracting skin cancer from them.

The countries' radiation protection and health authorities issued a joint public health advice statement, discouraging the use of sun beds for non-medical purposes and especially warning people younger than 18 years against using them.

"The incidence of skin cancers is steadily increasing in the Nordic countries ... Ultraviolet (UV) radiation is a known main risk for the development of skin cancers," the Finnish, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic authorities said.

"Even though the main source of UV exposure for a majority of the population is the sun, the artificial tanning from sun beds contributes significantly to the total UV risk."

They said solariums should at most issue as much ultraviolet radiation as natural sunlight when it is as strongest, which is around the equator, and that they hoped the executive European Commission would issue guidelines to that effect.

"The main objectives ... should be to improve radiation protection of groups at risk," the advice to the EU read.

"People in Northern Europe are accustomed to relatively weak solar UV levels in their countries. However, on their holidays they may also be exposed to stronger solar UV levels at more southern latitudes," it added.

There already exists an EU directive controlling UV exposure from sun beds, but the Commission has said it allows for too high radiation levels.

Several scientific studies, including one by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, have suggested that artificial sunlight increases the risk of cancer and California lawmakers last year voted to ban teenagers from tanning booths.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#586 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:23 am

I Don't Care What It Cures, I'm Not Taking It...

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Alongside life-size posters of Hindu nationalist leaders, Indian political activists can now buy lotions, potions and pills to cure anything from cancer to hysteria to piles -- all made from cow urine or dung.

A new goratna (cow products) stall at the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) souvenir shop is rapidly outselling dry political tracts, badges, flags and saffron-and-green plastic wall clocks with the face of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.

"You won't believe how quickly some of the products sold out," says Manoj Kumar, who runs the souvenir shop along with his brother, Sanjeev, at the BJP headquarters in a plush central New Delhi neighborhood. "The constipation medicine is a hot seller."

But the biggest seller is a "multi-utility pill" that claims to cure anything from diabetes to piles to "ladies' diseases."

"It's a miraculous cure" the container declares. A month's supply costs a little over $1.

Another cure-all is Sanjivani Ark, a liquid medicine that battles cancer, hysteria, and irregular periods, among other things.

In addition to medicines, the goratna products range from cow dung toothpaste, to detergents, a skin-whitening cream, baldness and obesity cures, soap and a cow urine "antiseptic aftershave."

Siddarth Singh, a spokesman for the Hindu nationalist BJP, which has long campaigned on the sanctity of the cow, said the stall aimed to promote village industry, one of the biggest employers in India.

"If you go back in the history of India, this belongs to our culture. There's no commercial value to us. Village industry in this country needs to be promoted."

The use of cow products in India is centuries old. The five key products -- butter, milk, curd, urine and dung -- are collectively known as panchgavya and are an important part of ayurvedic medicine.

The cow is worshipped by Hindus, who make up some 82 percent of India's over 1 billion people. Cow slaughter is banned in most parts of the country.

The goratna products, made by a cooperative in the northern "cow-belt" state of Uttar Pradesh, are rapidly gaining in popularity.

"Once they use it, they are coming back and they are bringing their friends and their family and their neighbors back with them," says Kumar.

Singh already uses the detergent and is thinking of experimenting further.

"I'm tempted to try something for the hair -- let's hope," he grins, running his fingers through his thinning crop.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#587 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:23 am

Artist Wants to Build Corpse Art Factory

WARSAW (Reuters) - Controversial German artist Gunther von Hagens, known for his displays of preserved human corpses stripped of skin, wants to build a factory in Poland to mass-produce his art, local officials said Monday.

Von Hagens, whose exhibitions made out of human and animal remains have attracted millions of visitors around the world, has already bought land and industrial buildings in the western Polish town of Sieniawa Zarska, near the German border.

"His father told us what he plans to do here. Von Hagen plans to open a plastination factory of human bodies," said Andrzej Chwiedacz, senior municipal official in Sieniawa, population 1,150.

"Von Hagen's father is trying to convince us and our people why it is good for our town."

The "plastination" process is a craft of preserving human bodies by replacing the natural body fluids with solid plastic. The process both preserves tissues and gives rigidity, enabling the corpse and the organs to be displayed in exhibitions.

Chwiedacz said the pioneer of plastination, whose scalpel jobs have alternately fascinated and nauseated viewers, wanted to turn the site into a factory where corpses will undergo his special treatment, employing up to 300 people.

The artist, who once put on display the corpse of a pregnant woman, complete with a dissection of her womb, has been tried in several countries for breaching laws about dealing with corpses.

The scandal around von Hagen's plans spiced up further when Polish and German press said his 89-year-old father, Gerhard Liebchen, who represents his son's businesses in Poland, is suspected to carrying out crimes against Poles in World War II.

"We will probe if Gerhard Liebchen cooperated in sending 60 Poles to concentration camps, which would give reasons to launch an investigation for participation in genocide," a state institute set up to examine wartime crimes said Monday.

Liebchen's whereabouts are not immediately known, with Sieniawa officials saying that he has not shown up in the town since the controversy started and left no contact number.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#588 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:24 am

Town Opens Doors to 5 Million New 'Citizens'

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - A small town in Hungary is set to become the country's biggest, on paper at least, by offering honorary citizenship to all ethnic Hungarians living abroad.

Peter Koszo, the deputy mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, said his town decided to grant the civic honor to an estimated five million Hungarians overseas after a referendum in December failed to grant them national citizenship.

The town of 50,000 is receiving more than 100 applications a day for citizenship, and the number is expected to jump as the offer attracts more publicity, Koszo said.

"We are building the biggest Hungarian city in virtual terms," said Koszo. The town's honorary citizens would not have the right to vote in Hungary.

The capital Budapest, 150 km (90 miles) northwest of Hodmezovasarhely, has 1.7 million inhabitants.

Hungary lost two-thirds of its territory and one-third of its citizens after World War One, and hundreds of thousands of Hungarians also emigrated to the Americas and Australia.

The right wing Fidesz opposition backed a referendum last December to grant citizenship to overseas ethnic Hungarians, of which around half are in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#589 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:26 am

Luxury Hotel Opens at Hitler's Alpine Retreat

OBERSALZBERG, Germany (Reuters) - When Adolf Hitler first encountered the breathtaking mountain scenery and lofty isolation of Obersalzberg in the Bavarian Alps, he fell instantly in love with the spot.

Later as German leader he sealed off the hamlet, creating an exclusive retreat where he and other top Nazis could wine and dine, savor the crisp Alpine air, and plan the most barbarous acts of the Third Reich.

Sixty years on, the owners of a new luxury hotel in Obersalzberg, which opens this week, are hoping the area's serene natural charm can attract a different kind of visitor and open a new chapter in the area's blighted history.

A glossy brochure presents "an oasis of well-being" where guests can indulge in spa treatments, have their ski boots warmed before use and play a round of golf.

The hotel, part of the Intercontinental chain, wants to avoid advertising the fact that it is just a stone's throw from where Hitler's Berghof villa once stood, for fear of attracting the wrong sort of visitors. But nor does it wish to evade Obersalzberg's infamy altogether.

Staff have been specially trained to answer questions on the area's history, and guests will find "Deadly Utopia" in their rooms, a disturbing account of how the seductive Obersalzberg landscape was woven into Nazi myths of German blood and soil and presented as a pilgrimage site to the Fuehrer.

"Obersalzberg is a loaded place ... it was a site linked to the perpetrators, which is a stigma that lingers and will continue to do so," said Bavarian Finance Minister Kurt Faltlhauser, who is behind the development of the resort.

"But Obersalzberg has another side. It was always also a place to recuperate in stunning landscape. The new hotel is part of this tradition."

Despite assurances from the Bavarian state government that it will not tolerate any misuse of the area or "Nazi tourism," Jewish groups have attacked the project as historically insensitive.

"Either people don't know the significance of the Obersalzberg, which is bad enough, or worse -- they know exactly what kind of a place it is, as Hitler's second seat of government, and they are doing this regardless," Jewish writer Ralph Giordano told German television.

NAZI GHOSTS

In 1952 the American military cleared what remained of Hitler's Berghof, where the dictator received Benito Mussolini, relaxed with his lover Eva Braun and greeted children in lederhosen and dirndl dresses with his dog Blondie at his heels.

The archive footage is familiar the world over, and up to 100,000 tourists flock to the site every year.

"Hitler was shown here as a majestic visionary, as a successful statesman receiving dignitaries, but also as a man of the people -- a friend to nature and children," said Volker Dahm, who runs a documentation center on the Nazi period in Obersalzberg.

"We have to use the 'pull' this place exerts to inform people, and to present them with all aspects of the Nazi regime."

Until the center opened in 1999, neo-Nazi graffiti appeared regularly in Obersalzberg along with impromptu shrines to Hitler with candles and flowers.

But Dahm says now that the evils of Nazi rule are compellingly presented, far-right supporters have been deterred from further pilgrimages. Obersalzberg has been demystified.

Andreas Nachama, who runs a permanent exhibition on the site of the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin agrees.

"These people look for sites which haven't been interpreted by historians, where they can let their ideas run wild. The minute a museum appears they can no longer project their fantasies onto a place."

LOCAL BENEFIT

Obersalzberg was in the hands of the American military until 1996, when it returned it to the Bavarian state authorities, who planned the historical center in conjunction with a new hotel to boost tourism to the area.

The small town of Berchtesgaden in the valley below Obersalzberg has seen hotel occupancy rates plummet and high rates of migration in recent years.

"I'm all in favor of the hotel, tourism has been declining and we need to bring people back to the area," said 31-year-old Sabine Gashi, who works in a souvenir shop.

Most locals are pragmatic about the past and have long sold picture-books of Hitler at the Berghof, alongside walking sticks, yodeling teddies and other Alpine gifts.

"A few people disapprove of the books, but it is the history of the area and we can't deny it," said Gashi.

There is also some sense in Berchtesgaden that the new hotel and its guests will be as remote from the town as the Nazi elite. The sleek building with stone floors and enormous panoramic windows eschews Alpine decor in favor of feng shui and offers rooms from 189 euros ($250.6) a night.

"I don't like it. It's so dark inside and the black bathrooms are funny," said Willi Lochner, a 55-year-old decorator from Berchtesgaden.

"They should have gone for a more traditional look. Still, it will only be rich people that go there."
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#590 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:30 am

Something Doesn't Smell Right About This Marriage

TEHRAN (Reuters) - An Iranian woman has requested a divorce from her husband on the grounds that he has not washed for more than a year.

"My husband says he does not like water and does not want to take a shower ... He doesn't even wash his face when he wakes up in the morning," Mina, 36, was quoted as saying in court by the state-run Iran newspaper.

When the couple first married eight years ago her husband was obsessively clean, she said.

"He spent hours taking showers three times a day and washed his hands every few minutes," Mina said. "But he suddenly changed ... Now nobody, including me, my children and his colleagues, can stand him."

Divorce is a notoriously difficult process for women in Iran, who normally have to prove that their husband has neglected them financially or sexually, is a drug addict or physically abusive.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#591 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:32 am

Pope's Illness Hits Vatican Souvenir Trade

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Pope's stay in hospital, and his absence from the Vatican, is hitting sales of trinkets and keepsakes which usually enjoy a roaring trade around St Peter's Square, souvenir sellers said Wednesday.

While pilgrims gathered outside the Gemelli hospital hoping to catch a glimpse of Pope John Paul, who is recovering from a throat operation, the Vatican City remained relatively quiet.

"The Pope's presence is important -- more people come and we work more," said one street merchant who sells rosaries, postcards and pillboxes embossed with images of St Peter's Basilica in front of the massive church.

Usually Wednesdays, like Sundays, bring a busy trade from Catholics who come to hear the Pope's weekly general audience, but the lack of people meant a drop in sales said the hawker, who gave his name as Remo.

"Without the Pope, we don't work. We don't make any sales on Wednesdays and Sundays because there are no audiences," said Remo. "You've got to have the Pope."

The 84-year-old Pontiff, who suffers from Parkinson's disease and severe arthritis, had a tracheotomy last Thursday to help ease breathing problems. The Vatican has not said how long he will remain in hospital.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#592 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:34 am

Topless Dancers Greet Prince Charles

ALICE SPRINGS, Australia (Reuters) - Topless Aboriginal dancers welcomed Britain's Prince Charles in Australia's outback on Wednesday, where locals were preparing to throw a bachelor party for the newly engaged royal.
Charles, who is due to wed divorcee Camilla Parker-Bowles on April 8, was greeted in Alice Springs with a traditional indigenous dance to wish him a safe journey in Australia.

Locals at the outback town's Bojangles bar were preparing to party as the future king of Australia arrived. Australia is a former British colony which retains the British monarch as its head of state.

Although Charles was spending less than five hours in Alice Springs, 1,200 miles northwest of Sydney, locals were planning to throw the heir to the British throne an outback-style "bucks night" to celebrate his impending wedding.

"We won't be shaving any eyebrows, no balls and chains, no gaffer-taping VB (beer) cans to anyone and putting them out in the park. It's a bit of wholesome fun with a bit of cheeky Australian humor," publican Chris Vaughan said.

Bojangles has borrowed a red carpet from the Alice Springs council, which is normally reserved for the mayor.

"It's a distinct possibility that he will come. Even if it's for five minutes to drop in and say 'g'day', let your hair down for five minutes, and have a quick glass of sherry or a cold beer," Alice Springs Councilor Ernie Nicholls said.

"If protocol won't allow that, they can just do a drive past. Think what that would do for Charlie's image in the UK, because at the moment he's on a rollercoaster ride downhill at a million miles an hour," he said.

Royal-watchers are aghast at the increasingly farcical preparations for his wedding, with the venue for the civil ceremony switched to a local town hall and Charles's mother Queen Elizabeth saying she will not attend.

Nicholls said the bachelor party organizers had received plenty of offers of entertainment for the event, including naked women jumping out of cakes.

"Women want to do all sorts of things for Charlie," he said.

While in Alice Springs, where temperatures topped 38 degrees Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), Charles was due to visit the Royal Flying Doctors Service, an indigenous science and technology center, a desert park and an Aboriginal art exhibition.

Charles's five-day visit to Australia, his first in a decade, will include stops in the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and the capital Canberra before he heads to New Zealand and Fiji.

After arriving in the western city of Perth, Charles visited the burns unit of a Perth hospital on Tuesday where he met victims of the October 2002 Bali nightclub bombings.

"The way all of you cared for the grievously injured from all over the world and supported, so generously, their families is humbling. All I can do on this occasion is salute you," he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Patrick Harrison, a spokesman for the prince, rejected a British newspaper report that Charles was planning a speech in which he would say he might not become king of Australia. "He's not going to say that at all," Harrison told Australian radio.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#593 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:35 am

Driver's Children Unlikely to Get Rich Quick

BERLIN (Reuters) - Michael Schumacher is one of the world's best-paid sportsman but the Formula One world champion is a cheapskate when it comes to his children's pocket money.

Schumacher, whose annual earnings are estimated at $80 million, gives his eight-year-old daughter Gina-Maria and his son Mick, who is six this month, two euros ($2.64) a week each.

"They have to learn wealth isn't automatic," the German Ferrari driver told Stern magazine in an interview.

"They get, just like other children, two euros allowance per week. They can either save it or buy something they really want with it."

But Schumacher added that lavish presents did sometimes slip through, saying his father got a mini go-kart for the children a few years ago.

"In the meantime they've both become good drivers," Schumacher said.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#594 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:36 am

What's in a Name? 'Sudan' Food Scare Angers Country

LONDON (Reuters) - Sudan's ambassador wants to know why a cancer-causing dye that caused a food scare in Britain is named after his country, but no one seems to have an answer.

Britain took 428 sauces, soaps and frozen meals off the shelves last week -- the biggest recall in UK history -- because a banned dye called Sudan 1 was found in a batch of chili powder used to make Worcestershire sauce.

But that didn't please the country of the same name.

Ambassador Hassan Abdin told Reuters his embassy had written to the Food Standards Agency asking for an explanation.

"Our concern is that this could do damage to the image of the country and to its name and exports. The name Sudan is rather unique as the name of the country," he said Wednesday.

"There must be an explanation. They are using it. You can't just use a name without knowing what it means."

A Food Standards Agency spokeswoman said she was trying to find out exactly how the chemical, which is used as a medical dye but is considered unfit for human consumption in food, got its name. It appears to have been called Sudan 1 since it was discovered by a scientist named Daddi in 1896.

"We weren't around in 1896. So we weren't responsible for naming it," she said.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#595 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:38 am

City Hit by Ancient Curse, Residents Say

LONDON (Reuters) - It is an ancient curse brought up to date, and residents in the northern English city of Carlisle claim it has brought them disasters from disease to the relegation of the local soccer team.

Since the installation of the sculpted granite "Cursing Stone" inscribed with a 16th century curse in one of Carlisle's museums in 2001 misfortune has plagued the city.

Livestock herds around the city on the border with Scotland were wiped out by foot-and-mouth disease, there has been a devastating flood, factories have closed, a boy was murdered in a local bakery and Carlisle United soccer team dropped a league.

Local councilor Jim Tootle insists the stone, designed by artist Andy Altman who arranged the inscription of the 1,069 word-long curse against robbers, blackmailers and highwaymen who plagued the area 500 years ago, is destroyed or removed.

But Altman bridled at the demand.

"It is just illustrating a historical past," he told Reuters. "Bad things are always going to happen, aren't they?"
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#596 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:38 am

Canada Defense Minister on U.S. No-Fly List - Paper

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham had trouble boarding a plane to the United States in January because his name was on a U.S. no-fly list designed to deter terrorists, the Globe and Mail said Wednesday.

The newspaper said Graham had to wait while his staff found ways to vouch for his identity and ensure he made it on to the scheduled flight.

"Apparently there is another Bill Graham out there somewhere who did something to get his name on an American watch list," the paper said.

"Mr. Graham was obliged to prove that he was the other Bill Graham, the one in charge of the Canadian (Armed) Forces."

No one from Graham's office or the U.S. embassy in Ottawa was available for comment.

Graham is not the only high-profile politician to fall foul of the no-fly list. U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy said last year he had been stopped at airports several times because his name was on the list.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#597 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:48 am

U.S. Denies Canada Defense Minister on No-Fly List

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The U.S. embassy in Canada denied a newspaper story Wednesday that said Canadian Defense Minister Bill Graham had trouble boarding a plane because his name was on a U.S. no-fly list designed to deter terrorists.

The Globe and Mail article said Graham had to wait while his staff found ways to vouch for his identity and ensure he made it on to the scheduled flight to the United States in January.

"The implication in (the Globe article) that Minister Bill Graham's recent difficulty in obtaining a boarding pass was due to U.S. security procedures is incorrect," said an embassy spokeswoman.

Asked whether Graham was on the no-fly list, which U.S. authorities also refer to as a watch list, she replied: "We don't talk about watch lists. We don't talk about individual cases."

Graham was traveling in northern Canada Wednesday and no one on his staff was available for comment.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#598 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:48 am

Stripper Selling Infamous Breast Implant on EBay

MIAMI (Reuters) - A former topless dancer who was famously cleared of battering a Florida nightclub patron with her "crazy big" breasts has shed her oversized silicone implants and put one of them up for auction on eBay.

The woman known professionally as Tawny Peaks said on Wednesday she recently came across the implants in a box in her closet after watching a television discussion about crazy things sold on eBay and decided, "Why not ... I don't need it any more."

"Somebody might bid on it. It's like the first boob to be sued over in a lawsuit," she said.

Peaks said she would autograph the auctioned implant for the winner but would keep its mate "for good measure."

She explained that she had her size 69-HH implants removed and underwent breast reduction surgery in 1999 after retiring from the business to start a new life.

"They were like really big, crazy big," said Peaks, who described herself as a happily married homemaker and mother of three now living in the Detroit area.

Peaks won notoriety in 1998 when a man sued her and her employer, the Diamond Dolls nightclub in Clearwater, Florida, saying he suffered a whiplash injury when she swung her breasts into his face at a bachelor party. He said they were "like two cement blocks."

The parties accepted binding arbitration on "The People's Court" television show and the judge, former New York City Mayor Ed Koch, ordered a female bailiff to examine Peaks in private.

The bailiff found the breasts to be "soft" and to weigh about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) each. Koch ruled they were not dangerous and refused to award damages.

The implant auction ends on Saturday. So far Peaks has received 10 bids, topping out at $71, according to the eBay Web site.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#599 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:43 am

Old Pimple Remedy: Using Spot to Cure Spots

LONDON (Reuters) - Take two puppies, cut off their heads and collect the blood, reads the 17th century instructions -- not for some voodoo rite but to cure pimples among the middle class.

Weird health and beauty recipes have been around for a long time. Now two old manuscripts, found at a British stately home and coming up for auction, suggest some truly odd cures for everyday ailments.

The 300-year-old cookery, medical and household recipe books, lavishly illustrated and with elaborate script, give advice on almost everything, from treating burns to getting rid of freckles, said manuscript specialist Luke Batterham.

"These books are a very direct insight into what people were interested in in the late 17th century," Batterham told Reuters. "People seem to go a very long way for beauty, now and then."

One recipe advises to take "2 Puppies before they can see, chopp of their heads & hang them up by the heels to bleed," then mix with white wine to rid the patient of unsightly pimples.

Scalds and burns, another says, are best treated with a mixture of sheep's dung and fresh goose grease, while four-day-old lemon juice rubbed on the face is guaranteed to eradicate unwanted freckles.

The two books are expected to fetch a total or more than 2,000 pounds ($3,844) when they go for auction at Bonhams in London on March 15.
0 likes   

User avatar
AussieMark
Category 5
Category 5
Posts: 5858
Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 6:36 pm
Location: near Sydney, Australia

#600 Postby AussieMark » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:43 am

Wolves in for a Shock

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish wolves with a taste for domestic dogs could soon be in for a shock as an electrified dog-coat could soon be on sale in Helsinki shops.

The dog-coat sends 1,000 volts of electricity through a predatory wolf when it bites into the outer layer, but is designed to ensure the pampered pet feels no pain from the jolt.

Inventor Jussi Aro has already applied for a patent for the battery-powered device. He hopes it will be available in shops by autumn for dog lovers in Finland, where 20 to 30 dogs are killed each year by wolves.
0 likes   


Return to “Off Topic”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 20 guests